


Chilled

by carneeval



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BlackIce, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Obsessions, Plot change, Possessiveness, Possible future sexual content, Power Switch, Slow Build, The amount I am unsure on yet, very slow build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carneeval/pseuds/carneeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch Frost has been following the same path and schedule for the winter season for the hundreds of years he has been alive, ignoring and covering up his own sense of loneliness to himself with the distraction of a schedule. This is, until things begin to turn upside down within his own world as his help is suddenly demanded from higher places and his attention is draw toward a particular spirit of Fear and Nightmares. </p><p>Alternate Universe with Pitch as the winter spirit and Jack as the Boogieman. No age switch, they are still the same ages as they were in the movies and books. Partly follows the movie plot then breaks off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Winter Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very apologetic for the first little paragraph, I know it's nothing special, but it's meant to be a bit choppy and under described. We'll come back to it fully, later. Also, before you read this, if you have not read up on Pitch's history, I will strongly advice it. You can find a summary of it on his wikipedia article, just search on the page for "The Rise and Fall of Pitch" and you'll find it.  
> His actions and personality will be worked off of from Kozmotis Pitchiner, of course.

A man takes hesitant steps onto the surface of a frozen lake toward the small figure of his daughter, eyes fidgeting between the thin layer of ice and a scared form across from him. His fear is high inside his own heart, but his words are calm to the ears of his child. He reaches a hand across to her, confident that they would be fine.

But his foot is met with an unforgiving crack in the ice. A fall. Cold. It does not just freeze his muscles, silence his movement, it is utterly and completely _burning_ him like a frozen fire. Since when did the cold burn?

Then everything was black.

* * *

 

He stands upon a roof overlooking the small village, his posture straight and full, a practically proud stance of an unseen leader. His eyes scan over everything to be sure that there wasn't a single detail missing. He feels an actual sense of slight satisfaction come over him as he observes the town, until he hears someone say that phrase. That damned phrase.

“Well, at least the weather isn't pitching a fit yet.”

He grinds his teeth together, pulling up the top of his lip in a disgusted sneer at that. Pitching a fit. It was very funny, yes, hilarious. No one actually believed in him, not anymore at least, but there were still those stupid Christmas songs and embarrassing characters in old children stop animation films that did not represent him in the _slightest_ that people put their minds to when they needed some sort of saying for the nip of the winter _._ It was somehow, by some horrible chance, that his name had made it into the humans hands, just the name, and phrase came about from it.

His, Pitch Frost.

It didn't have the best ring to it, but it was his, and every Christmas season, he watched it soiled, only slightly. Whether it be through that phrase or through the childrens cartoons, it was only used minimally. It was always overshadowed by the man with a whole list of names. Old Saint Nick, Santa Clause, the Man of the North, the Big Red. Whatever people could think of that year. But he? Oh he was drug down to a simple phrase and an insulting extra. After he heard that phrase and recalled all of these annoying little details, it tempted him to make a blizzard worse then his temper tantrum back in '68. Oh he would give them a weather fit that would...

That would only make them use the phrase more heavily and more jokingly. Because that was what families did when it became all too bad, if they were strong enough. If they were weak, it fell into pointing fingers and meaningless fights, anything they could possibly do to wear each other down, just to feel stronger over one another.

But if they were strong enough, their shivers were met with small jokes about the weather they were in, and broken laughs. It was the thought, that at times, the joke upon him _brought people together_. It brought families together. With that, he sighs and continues on to locate what he had been in the first place before he became so sidetracked.

Not to mention, he did not feel like being on the bad list of a certain E. Aster Bunnymund anymore then he already was. It was not Easter he was aiming for when he threw the weather tantrum, but it did indeed ruin the day for Aster. And forever ruined any chance of being on the good, or even neutral, side of the over grown rabbit.

He reaches into the inner of the long blue cloak that met the ground, tapping on a piece of paper that had been frosted to the inside so to be kept on his person while he traveled. The connection with his fingers riling the paper made it so it unhooked from the inside of the coat and before it could fall to the ground and possibly shatter with how long it had been settled against icy skin, he caught it and brought it up to his face.

The notes were written in a gentle scrawl with thin black ink from the edge of a feather quill. He insisted on using this method of writing, though, the Spirits that he made trade with for the difficult to find items were never extremely fond of him over his hard bargains. But he had things they wanted. A man who could travel about the globe as freely as he and the winds pleased had an eye for things that stood out. Lost little items that hands wished they had never lost grasp of, or things that the humans that dropped them along the way had no clue would actually mean something to a spirit willing for trade.

If there was something he did not do, it was steal. He did not steal _himself_ anyway. He knew that most everything he traded for, especially the quills, were stolen from somewhere, and it wasn't as if quills were just anything in the modern day, they would have to be stolen from specialty makers, and he found Spirits that had no problem, morally, with stealing from just those sorts of places.

He felt no sense of guilt about it... That was not completely true. There was some sense of guilt, but he easily replaced it with the knowledge that without him, humans would not have their scheduled winter seasons, their excited children throwing snow balls and experiencing the time of the year, brightening by the idea of the feather light snow flakes that fell to the ground and created the mounds of snow, perfect for putting sleds upon.

His eyes scanned over that exact schedule. He was nothing if not neat, orderly, like a soldier on the front line. When his mood was right, of course. This was what kept him busy at times when he was not needed. The rabbit had his eggs, the woman had her teeth, and the man of the North had his own list. He had this list. Upon it, in neat scrawls were the words 'Village of Elanor: Tuesday, ground coverage in the evening. Wednesday, light snow fall. Thursday, winds. Friday, begin storm season'

Yes, the powerful winter spirit knew just what he was doing. This was his art, his whole purpose, everything he was. He was not a phrase or an extra in a Christmas film. He was the winter, and he embodied it and commanded it. He tapped his thumb on the word Thursday. Today, they would receive winds. His eyes scanned down to the children throwing snowballs back and forth at one another, running about, laughing. Some of the children parents stood in the background, smiling warmly, watching as if their happiness relied solely upon the children feeling wonder in the snow.

Every time he saw that smile, he would feel a pull inside himself. It was tight, gripping, it made him feel...

He gripped the scythe like item made completely of ice that he held at his side, intricately designed and could easily be mistaken as carved glass, but the ice material it was made from held strong. It could not easily be broken, if at all, and the male was confident of this as he held it up in the air, the chilled air beginning at his back, swooping up the long dark blue cloak with the frosting making its way around his shoulders, his chest, where it was worn open with no shirt beneath it, and upon the edge of the cloak where it touched snowy floors.

Pitch would look like some sort of god to anyone who could have seen him, if anyone had paid attention to the silly songs and sayings, they might have seen him standing above him, commanding the freezing cold winds that pressed and pushed them to return to their homes, they might have really believed he was some sort of god, and stood in awe and terror of him. If someone really could see him, if they FINALLY saw him, especially like this, he would be unsure of what to do, how to react.

He, who so easily decided that, because of a schedule, he should change happy and fun play, and content smiles, into the parents grasping at their childrens back, pushing hair out of their faces in order to see, their expressions showing so many thoughts at the same time. He did not know how, but he knew what went through their minds, all within a minute. Their child could get sick from the cold, they could become pained by the bite of the wind, they could get lost in a flurry of snow, the expressions showed so many worries all over loss, pain, or sickness for the child in the pick up of the wind.

He always found his eyes on them, the mothers and fathers, ever so often he would watch the children play, but that just caused some sort of pained clenching that almost brought him a distant anger from him. It made no sense, he never had any sort of wronged by a child. How could an adult be wronged by a child enough to have the emotion of anger to burn frozen inside of them...?

He didn't believe it was really possible, and thus, he tried to keep the children as part of the scenery. All of them were part of the scenery, in the end. He felt this was absolutely true, due to the fact that he was alone now. It had likely been many minutes since the groups of families had hustled back into their homes and disappeared from his sights, his cruel winds whipping all about the small homes that likely held little protection against the cold, and he hadn't even noticed. This was absolute proof that whatever these emotions that ignited inside of him, they mattered very little. Perhaps, in the hundreds of years he had been living, something had happened that left a mark enough to ignite feelings, but not important enough for him to remember.

He quite liked this answer. He clung deeply to it. He could say he had no attachments to these humans, nothing truly affecting him, and that was good enough. It was time to move on. That was all he needed to do today. He turned around to put his back to the village, having no clue that nearby, in the shadows of trees of the forest, a figure stood, feet pressed to the sides of a wooden staff, watching him, a sick and twisted grin formed on their lips.

“Int~eresting.” The word strung out on a young voice, a thumb pressing against their bottom lip as the hooked their sharp teeth against the nail upon it.

Pitch stayed unaware of any presence keeping their eyes on him, rather, he summoned the winds and ice to assist him off of the roof. He stepped down and just as he barley began to descend, a streak of thin ice grasped under his feet, allowing him to stand practically still as wind and ice carried him along through the air, his arms crossed against his back. When he was first awoken as Pitch Frost, he had tried simply using the naturally given, if not clumsy at first, gift of regular flight upon the wind, but it was too... Embarrassing. He stood extremely tall with a well toned, worked, figure, and to have something like that attempting to _fly_ against the winds...

He would not accept it. He had woken up with a strong and disciplined personality that said that if there was a small possibility that he could do something he wanted to, then there was an absolute that he could work toward it. And with that, he had begun practicing the art of shifting ice into the bottom of his boots and transporting air, and about his body to be sure that he focused on keeping his weight balanced in order to not just break through it, and be forced to use his scythe in order to flail himself about the air like some sort of puppeteered rag doll.

He was sure it would never fail on him, because he had perfected this art of being carried on sheets of ice.

His destination was home, and he gave the wind the soft command, and it swiftly complied. It was always ready to comply to his requests, it almost felt like he didn't ask enough of it, didn't put it to enough use. The wind was playful, in a strange sense of the way, it was absolutely full of life. He himself was... He did not know...

He was schedules and control.

He and the wind did not seem as though they were meant to be side by side, one anothers only companions that recognized the other existed. Other spirits knew of him, but they did not really acknowledge him. That was how it was with the wind as well. It brushed up against them and danced with them, but they did not really notice the life it held. They did not know that it had its own language and it whispered it to him.

He supposed, perhaps, the wind and he, made better companions then he had thought. And thus, he continued giving it a spare job of carrying him with his practiced iced abilities, to the Antarctic where he made his home.

The structure that he called home stood tall in the middle of the expanse of snow and almost fearsome looking. It was stories high and made up of built upon layers of jagged ice that held sturdy and proud. He was carried back down to the ground before it, where he walked through a cut out door, a direct opening to his frozen home. He would have made it a regular _door_ rather then just a doorway, but the mechanics of it escaped him, and after many failed attempts to actually make a door that swung open and closed correctly, he decided, that even some things were out of his hands, no matter how much discipline was applied.

And though clearly, he had some sort of eye for architecture, with the floors and halls and rooms that were built and iced into perfection to be walked upon, none of them had swinging doors. It was simply something he could not manage to figure out. The floor in the practical palace was smoothed down to the point of being a reflective surface that took in the sight of the man who walked across it. Each time his foot would fall to the ground, it would echo. It would go up into the different passages and rooms and echo almost endlessly... Hesitating was always the worst possible thing he could do. To give himself time to listen to the sound of his footsteps bouncing off the walls.

So many rooms he had created with these hands, and why? That was never a question he wanted to give himself too much time to think over. He rather kept up with fluid and quick steps toward his next destination now that he had reached home. Up ahead, there was a desk carved completely from ice, a window had been made for looking out onto the empty Arctic floors. He had shaved, very carefully, at the ice until it had become one thin layer, translucent and needing to have a new sheet of ice blown over it ever so often to keep it from breaking. At least, the effects made the Arctic look less... Dull and lonesome. Though, the chair before it was made completely of wood and fabric, it, and an old bed in the upper levels, were the only two pieces of furniture that could be found that had not been constructed of snow and ice.

They had been separate occasion finds, all pieces had been discarded by humans who saw it as having no use any longer, but barley even damaged or used, either pieces of the bed or chair. He found humans, especially the wealthy ones, to be so particular at times, and almost... Funny, in the way that they were so easily distractable. Those who worked toward the sort of wealth that he had found these pieces from, seemed like the sort that could not stand looking at the same thing for a certain amount of time before feeling the need to replace it.

For status? For some sort of need inside them that they were attempting to fill with material things, to get that height of excitement that came on when there was something unfamiliar about? Was there some sort of void that needed to be filled, that they did not realize they were going about all wrong. Yes, humans were such a fickle.

He made himself comfortable at the desk, taking the piece of paper that had been frozen over, and settled it on the desk, very gently, careful not to cause the frozen paper to shatter against it. The hardest part about his love for the quill and ink, was being sure that they were kept in a place that would not cause the ink to completely freeze over. The ink and pen existed in a small box that he kept under the desk, golden sand constantly swirling about it. A gift from the ever famous Sandman. He was never quite sure why the stout man gave him the box that easily protected any items that he needed from the surrounding cold and kept it from freezing, but he did.

He was not use to being... Given things.

Usually, it all happened by trade, he once got a hearty apology from North for the lack of gifts for him due to him being an adult, and how he only did it for children. A confusing notion since he didn't exactly want to be given silly little toys for children, and did not care to be given things... But... It was an odd sensation, a pleasant one, to have one thing in his large home that was simply given to him by no means needed...

For one moment, the side of his mouth pulled up in a slight smile. It went down just as quickly, taking the ink and quill from the box and settling them next to himself, crossing out the towns that had been taken care of this day. He always knew he would be on schedule, he never deviated, never got distracted, he always kept his trades on a firm time constraint in order to travel the world, keeping winter completely in check. He told himself that he kept the list in order to be as prompt as physically possible, and perhaps this was partly true...

But the other half, that he tended to ignore, never think about, had to do with the fact that he had nothing else to do. It wasn't as if he could always be traveling about making the snow and ice, keeping everything in check at all times. This was only because if he exhausted the wind and himself too much... Well, he would not be able to do his job properly if he were ready to fall over by the time the day ended.

And it wasn't as if he had any other hobbies to distract himself with. Or people.

He was on very good terms with most of the spirits that roamed, there were a few here and there that he looked down upon or he just plain... Unpleasant run ins with... But in general, he was indeed on good terms with them, aside for Bunnymund for personal reasons, the Guardians had no qualm with him, if not thought he was a bit... Strange. Distant. A spirit once even went as far as to call him _creepy_. So he had no companions to call upon in his free time. Really, he desired none. Before he had discovered other spirits existed in the world, he had already been wandering completely alone, for over forty years.

Whether or not he really didn't desire company or if he was just blocking himself out and staying comfortable to what he had become accustomed to, was not something he was willing to think about. His thoughts were, in fact, wandering to those sorts of places, as he told them not to, causing his shocking blue eyes to be fixated on the paper, though his hand was not moving. The ink dripped onto it in the time that he had diverged his attention, leaving a small pool on the surface of the frozen paper. When he came to, a frustrated and surprised expression moved onto his face, gritting his teeth, looking around for something to blot it with...

His face dropped, there was no point behind it.

He would just need to completely re-write the... His body went still as he noticed something from the corner of his eyes... They slowly traveled to the small dream sand box... Amongst the glittering golden sand, there was a blotch of _black_ traveling along it. It glittered just as the dream sand did, but it emitted some sort of sinister air to it. The positivity that he received from the box, it was mixed in with some sort of feeling of dread. He had not even realized until that moment that the box gave him any sense of comfort, just by existing near him.

Then, there was a sound.

It was not hard to pick up sound around this place, he was always the only person here and due to the ice walls and floors, nothing got past him, not even a little bit of snow traveling in and placing themselves on the floor, he could always hear everything, as if he had been trained to anyway.

And that, was the padding of bare feet touching down onto his floor. He could feel eyes hooked to the back of his head. He did not know why, but they kept him locked in place. It could have been seconds to minutes that he sat still, silence reigning, his hands pressed flat to the top of the ice desk, that there was a sound again. The sound of the bare feet taking steps forth, going toward him. From the corner of his eye, he could see that the black on the box that mingled with the gold had become more excited. It had practically begun to dance on the surface, driving the golden sand into corners of the box, as if trying to escape.

Why couldn't he simply move? He was Pitch Frost, the spirit of winter. He _chose_ the manner in which snow fell, whether or not it came down like feathers, or blared through the streets and left cars buried and houses trapped. At times, even crops destroyed, homes ruined. As long as it fit in with the schedule, he did it and he did it with a straight face. He would not allow himself to simply sit here and act as if the sound of those bare feet moving across the floor could hold him in his place.

When they had come close, he swiftly turned around in his chair, wanting to meet eyes with who had dared enter his home without his permission. The moment that he had, all he caught sight of was a shadow, holding some sort of staff like object that curled at the top, that swiftly shifted to the side, disappearing around a corner. His eyes widened fully, grasping the ice scythe that he kept at his side, he stood swiftly, the chair pushing off to the side, away from him. He skidded across the floor, graceful in the way that his boots and connection with the ice allowed him to easily glide. He made his way around the wall where he had seen the being go to. He could see them, standing at the very end of the impossibly long hall, posture completely straight and still. Not only did it strike him that they had made it down there so swiftly, but they were not out of breath, or seemed to have just stopped.

No, they seemed as if in the time that it took Pitch to glide there, they had been waiting patiently.

He could make out most of the figure. He could make out a lot of black. They seemed to be wearing a modern style hoody, the hood drawn up over their hair, the rest of their face concealed by the darkness. The edge of the darkened pants were torn, seeming to have been worn down and contradicted the hood with the age that they seemed to be, nothing like the jeans that he could imagine would normally go with such a thing... He knew it was silly, thinking on these sorts of things together, but it only happened due to being able to recognize by their figure, that they were of a younger age. Perhaps young adult, perhaps just made it into adulthood.

They did not bother to stick about much longer, once Pitch had taken the chance to examine their looks, they turned, and did not shift into the shadows this time, this time they simply ran.

Pitch yelled out in that moment, something unfamiliar to his voice, a call of 'Hey!' before running after the young figure to attempt to catch up with it. His boots fell heavily against the floor, each echo catching up with the last one. Over the sound of his falling feet, he could hear the sound of... Laughter... It seemed to catch every wall and every corner, devious but completely excited... It was close to maniacal, but held a certain childish excitement within it. The combination was almost terrifying.

The scythe was heavy in his hands as he skidded around the corner, seeing the figure had already made it up to the flight of stairs that would take one to the second floor, perched upon the railing, hunched over, the bottom of his feet pressed onto it, keeping him balanced upon the railing.

He was closer to them now, close enough to see details now. He wasn't immediately going to assume gender when they were so far away, but from here, he could see it was indeed a boy. His face had blended so well with the darkness of the hoody because of the ashen skin and blackened hair, but his head was tilted down enough that he couldn't make out the eyes.

He kept the scythe before him, protectively, as he put a foot on the steps, slowly moving up each step, staring up at the figure, the boys head turned to follow his every move up the stairs, waiting for him to reach the flat of the next floor.

His eyes darted about their figure, swearing he saw a glint of gold underneath the shadows of the hood and hair, “Who are you...” He spoke slowly, “What are you doing here...?”

He was only a couple of feet away from him, and as the question was finished, he witnessed as the lips pulled up in a full grin showing whitened baring teeth, they resembled fangs, each tooth seemed to end in a sharpened shape...

He couldn't believe that nothing else had given him an indication of who this was... It should not have clicked the moment that the boy had faded into the shadows, his whole demeanor should have given it away easily, but Pitch hadn't thought to let his mind go there, there was just something simply... Shocking about having someone in his home. It was in that moment that he realized _who_ that he reacted in a way that shamed him. He lowered his weapon slightly, dropped his shoulders, and stared with a dumbfound expression on his face.

Before it could completely hit him, a slew of gold sand traveled from the hall to the side of them, knocking the boy from his perch, off onto the level before. Pitch gasped silently before running to look over the edge to see his state. The boy was, of course, fine, as all spirits were when taking such a hit. He knew it would take more then one story to even shock the body for more then a couple of seconds.

In the time that it had taken the male to sit up and turn his head up toward the second story, obviously frustrated with the sudden hit, the hood slipped back, revealing a small mass of black hair and standing out upon the dark of his face, dark golden eyes that glared upward. It didn't take long for another long strand like a whip to sling out at the boy down below. He swiftly lept out of the way, sending himself to his feet and running the opposite direction, seeming quite practiced in avoiding on coming attacks. The moment before he disappeared back into the shadows, Pitch saw his head turn, shining eyes resting on him, for only a moment, before he grabbed the hood and shoved it back over his hair, jumping into the air, he seemed to fly for a few seconds, before shrouding himself into shadows once again and fading from sight.

He could feel another presence move up next to him, Sanderson usually gave off a light, pleasant, breeze whenever he moved, and ever so often, the soft chiming of tiny bells in the distance could be heard as he moved. He looked to the Dream Spirit beside him, gesturing with the ice scythe at where the boy had once lay.

“Might I ask what the little Prince of Nightmares was doing in my home?”  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am sorry about Jack's cheesy name for this, but I just couldn't stand the name “Jack Black” or “Jack Nightmare” so I had to go with the closest thing that my mind could actually stomach. And no, it was not an intended reference to Homestuck.
> 
> I think the hardest part about writing this, is I try to keep the characters voice in mind when I write. Jack is -and I should have expected this- difficult to write and keep his original voice in mind at the same time. 
> 
> Hey, wow, it has been a while since I wrote these notes and the beginning of this new chapter.  
> I have my friend ask-the-north-wind to thank for beta'ing the chapter for me~

He didn't understand why he expected Sanderson to know what exactly the ever so popularly spoken of Jack Noir was doing in his Palace of Ice. The two were not exactly on the best of terms, of course, and though it was usually assumed that the “heroes” knew what the “villain” was up to at all times, in reality, this was not the case. At least, not at the moment. Not when it actually had something to do with him.

He couldn't hold any negative feelings against Sanderson; no, the male had made it there when he felt he needed to be. His mind pestered him, noting that part. Sanderson wasn't truly needed. He simply  felt he needed to remove the Nightmare. He wasn't sure why the Prince of Nightmares was in his home, but it seemed like he had been... Playing some sort of game with him. He felt as though if he had neared the other again, he would simply run into another room, and continue it until... Who knew when...

It was not as if he was going to continue some childish game of catch. He would have become annoyed at some point and just begin targeting him with ice to freeze the boy to his spot and demand answers. That was what he wanted previously; some damn answers to why he had been there. This ran through his mind the entire time that Sanderson stayed to chat with him a little longer... Well, it was some form of chat, he was the only one using vocalization to communicate, though he easily caught each image in the air, and though he had to ask for a bit more clarification at times, he was able to keep the strange conversation going until it caught Sanderson's attention that in a completely different part of the world, his presence was needed in proximity.

He followed the lights that Sanderson emitted as he flew off into the distance, away from the freezing land of the Arctic. Once again, he was left to stand among the silence of his home, his gaze still locked upon the outside. The sun was setting outside, the walls taking on a blue glow within them the darker the outside became. Within the walls, spread out almost randomly inside of it, small blue marbles began to show dimly, illuminating more and more the further the sun set and spread darkness among the frozen land.

They were one of his many trades, one of his rare trades with the man of the North, in fact. He never received a gift from the man, but that did not mean that they didn't have past business expenditures. The day he had actually begun plans of construction of the ice palace he found an extremely problematic note on how he would deal with the lighting situation. Things didn't stay quiet in the Spirit community. The lot of them mostly kept to themselves if they had no reason to have affairs with one another, but that never meant that there wasn't always one lurking around a corner, in a tree, through particles in the air. So it was only natural, that somehow, the news of the construction and the note on the side of the papers stating that lighting was going to be a primary issue made it back to the man himself.

He had come plummeting down on the sleigh, sending snow flying in each direction, nearly crashing into Pitch on his way down, with offerings of help and trade over his little lighting issue. He could no longer even recall what he offered in exchange for them, but he received the large bag of little marble-like spheres that stayed clear in the light, but began to glow a bright blue when closed into darkness.

He was able to freeze them within the walls of the palace, and his little problem of utter and complete darkness in the night in the Arctic was remedied... Mostly. The little marbles let off a glow, yes, but it was one that was eerie. It caused every inch of the white home to become a deep blue.

In his earlier years as a Winter Spirit, if he found himself unable to figure out where to go or what to do next, he would take a residence in the open window of a human's home and watch the various movies they would play off their television screens for entertainment outside of the bustle of their busy lives. He found himself particularly drawn to the horrors. He put humans scaring themselves for fun off as such a silly thing; no, he did not feel a sense of fear, he did not even jump with them, the humans screaming as the screen shot them sudden scenes intended to cause just that effect, in fact he always felt... Amused... Moreover. He had a deep sense of knowing how fake those images were, too deep to really be affected, but he was still captivated by the productions of those films.

And at times, in some of the films, he witnessed scenes shown with a blue tint on it, deep shadows captured between the dark blue. The marbles in the walls mirrored the same sort of scene within his home. He was not fearful; no, of course not. He was, however, unsettled by it. Those sorts of things were meant to stay upon sets in the cities where these images were filmed. Not within the damned walls of his own home. He considered, more deeply now, the idea of trading for torches for his walls. Yes, they would mix with the blue quite well...

Not to mention, it would be much easier to read in torch light.

He found his mind wandering to the thought of torch light and the shadows it would throw. His eyes scanned the area, knowing that torches did leave quite long, flickering, shadows...

And what an interesting things shadows were.

 

A man holds the hand of his wife for the last time, watching as the fateful strings of life are slowly lifted from her in beautiful golden strands. The trained soldier might have seen the world fall from his hands as well if not for the beautiful face of a baby girl that is shown to him by doctors that show faces no comprised of fake sympathy, but truly, truly holding back a release of their own emotions as they display the life his wife’s body had fought to protect.

He can see that the world had not fallen out from under his feet.

In fact, he never felt more stable.

 

He didn't know what he was doing, exactly. He had never been one to care much for the pull of curiosity, and yet here he was, feet flat upon the ice as it allotted him travel, staring forth with determined eyes. This curiosity was a little too deep. The Noir boy had disappeared long ago, during the Dark Ages. He had been a little bit of a Trickster before that, messing with Holidays and dreams and everything that he should have stayed out of, but he had never done enough to catch any deep attention.

Then, something happened. The powers that the Noir boy had, that he never bothered to use to their full potential... Everyone knew that he had the full potential to overthrow a full planet, to destroy whatever he could possibly feel pleased to... But to everyone's pleasure, he never seemed to have any interest in anything but messing about.

No one knew what changed; there wasn't a single spirit who had truly interacted with Jack Noir for long, not enough to know the workings of the eternal shadow teen's mind, but the full potential he was hiding within him was suddenly released.

There was not a planet nor a species safe from the reign of terror that had begun due to whatever stimulus had set off the boy. The new found path of destruction had caused things to escalate swiftly into the extermination of many species into single numbers, until the boy had been forced back down to the planet he had originated from. He was unsure of the details, but he had been kept quiet for a long while. When he returned, the time everyone called “The Dark Ages” began.

The humans were the most emotionally constricted species that Noir had set his sights on. He didn't kill them; no, he tormented them emotionally. The humans lived in a constant state of fear of the black clad teenager. It wasn't until the Guardians were chosen and sent out to bring positivity to the humans . Their species was a strange thing to the man. They made themselves believe they had never seen their shadow of fear, that it had been a collected dream, a scary story to warn children against before bed, to make them behave. How an entire species could fool themselves into turning a figure they had all seen into nothing but a story, he was unsure. But they achieved it and Jack Noir was forced back into the shadows.

But he never did disappear completely. No, the boy turned back to his habit of being a Trickster... But no one ever saw him. It was apparent when something was the fault of the Prince of Shadows, but he kept so utterly concealed, no one had any positive identification of him...

'Until today.' He reminded himself... No one took the little thing very seriously, there were many that believed that someone else had been working things from the background when Noir had his reign of terror. He couldn't have simply done it on his own after so many years of being known to have the most terrifying powers in existence and using them to play... Pranks...

But he knew that the Guardians would have a field day with this. Any sort of threat to the children was something to be panicked over. And how those Guardians could panic. And whether or not there was someone else behind the scenes, or Noir was up to something on his own, his presence of showing up in Pitch's ice palace was apparently something to be worried over. After all, Sanderson had to have some sort of reason to come to the Antarctic, and that reason had to be Noir. There was no one close to this place to put to sleep and award good dreams to. No, Sanderson had not said so, he attempted pleasant conversation over anything else, but his whole reason to be here was due to Noir.

He had a different reason to be locating Noir... He was out for that specific reason, traveling in the dark of the night in search of the teen, in order to gain the answers he wanted. He wasn't sure what sort of sign he could be given to the exact location of the boy, but he felt if he traveled enough, he would run across him eventually. He had a feeling that being noticed was exactly what Noir was looking for.

He was gliding over a forest in Eastern Asia when he felt something glide by the side of his face. He gripped his scythe, raising it up, ready in case of some sort of attack. He waited for almost half a minute before he felt it again, closer this time. It felt like... Sand... He was reminded of the black sand that had infected the golden box he had sitting upon his desk... It had faded away after Noir had left but... He caught sight of a figure this time, dropping down toward the forests below. His arms were raised over his head, and he recognized the black Sheppard's staff shape just barley in the blackness of the night below.

There was no doubt, it was him. He was... Actually very taken back. He had told himself he had anticipation that he would find the Noir boy before the end of the night, but truly, he was expecting to be let down. He hesitated on what he wanted to do for a moment before nodding toward the ground, the wind and the ice carrying him downward, until he was able to step a short distance to connect his feet with the ground.

Turning about, his eyes scanned the area for something, anything, but his ears were what caught the first sign of Jack Noir being in his presence.

“You know...What his place is...?” The sound came from above, he immediately canted his head upward to find the dark figure of the boy standing upon one of the branches, leaning against the trunk of the tree, his hands seemingly stuffed away into the pockets of the hoody, “This is a place... Where people come to die...”

There was something broken in the way he spoke, bringing a curious expression onto Pitch's face. His voice sounded, unsurprisingly, like someone who had long been lost to the depths of insanity long ago. And at the same time, it was like every word must be forced from his throat, that something was holding him back from simply continuing what he was saying like a normal, rational person.

But then again, he supposed, Jack Noir was anything but a normal, rational person.

“Uh... On their own that is. People usually off themselves by hanging off of the trees...” He laughed, quietly, broken, “By their necks. I mean... Just hanging actually sounds like fun!”

“Oh yes, there... Is so much darkness in this forest...” He speaks with a sense of rough admiration, one of the hands lifting up out of the front pocket, just barley a shadow in the low lights, gesturing outward, “There's sadness... There's hate... There's uh... This just overwhelming sense of... Disappointment... Yeah... When someone like me needs a little rejuvenating... This is the place to go.”

He turned in one movement, sticking his leg out before tipping off of the tree, not falling but gliding down, seeming to be carried very easily by the shadows. It was a much smoother movement then what the wind could produce, like he was moving through water right before him.

He felt the wind kick up under his feet, giving him some sort of indication that he had possibly just offended his trusty mode of transportation. That was the last thing he wanted to do.

The boy touched the ground before him, glancing up with yellowed eyes glowing in the dark of the night, and Pitch could almost tell that the side of his mouth was pulled up in a slight smirk. His Scythe gave off a dim white glow in the dark; it wasn't enough to be a truly reliable light source, but it did something to keep him from being doomed to the complete darkness and lack of sight.

The boy's eyes and skin seemed to catch the light of the scythe and take it in as Pitch stepped closer. His gray skin and yellowed eyes seeming to change as they were illuminated on in the dark...

He began to pace, the eclipse like eyes leading up and down Pitch, wandering around him in a circle, “Tell me... Frost Spirit... Why... Did you go looking for... Me...? I think it would have been in your best interest to...” He let a slight laugh, “Well, not.”

“You trespassed into my home without permission and proceeded to give me a small run about before nearly going into battle in the confines of said home...” He had relaxed his posture a bit, putting the scythe to stand next to him, his hand gripping it tightly still. The way the other paced about him resembled a predator, so he had no desire to let his guard down too much. “It's fairly obvious, any dimwit could figure it out fairly quickly. I want to know what you were doing there.”

Jack chuckled, almost softly, he could tell that Pitch's insults were fairly empty. Just there to make him a little more intimidating. The intense eyes saw right through it. Jack suddenly side stepped behind a tree, the chuckle seemingly echoing through the air, carrying along with the shadows, surrounding him. It made him almost feel claustrophobic, a feeling he had not experienced previously...

“Where...?” His voice echoed along the sides of the nightfalls shadows, a playful air to it, teasing, “You have to be more specific... I go a lot of place--”

“My home.” He spoke insistently, his tone taking on annoyance. He didn't like these sorts of word games.

The thickness of the shadows seemed to let up and collect in one spot, Noir forming before him, a shape in the darkness, “Oh THAT! See, when you don't throw words around and just get to the poi-point already. Then. Then people get'chya.”

There was almost something mechanical about him... Distorted and forced into every which direction. He found himself questioning what exactly this boy really was... Something of destruction and mayhem that had caused the end of the Golden Age. That, once upon a time, dwindled conversations to hushed panics in question of when the Nightmare Prince would strike again. These words had calmed over the years, more and more as time went on, and the Prince seemed to no longer be a formidable opponent to the nature of good.

He simply... Had disappeared.

Pitch felt himself to be a neutral party between all of it. The times where his services were fairly unneeded had given him plenty of time to think over the situations that had happened in the past, situations he had no presence in and thus, he felt as though he had no bias to give...

“You haven't answered my question.” Pitch pressed on. It was the whole reason he had come out here. He was sure of it...

“Answers, answers, answers...” Jack rolled his shoulders back, his head lulling with it, voice stressed with each word, his mouth opened again as he returned his posture to normal, golden eyes hidden under shadows switched from side to side, seeming to have forgotten just what he had been saying...

Such a strange young thing...

His hand waved, a reminder of what he was saying, and he continued, “You're all about having things in order, nice and neat and tidy, never letting things get a bit... Messy.”

Pitch fidgeted at that, and with it, a malicious grin adjusted onto Jack's face, and oh if he didn't feel sense of anxiousness rise up at the show of that upward pull of lips, he would have sneered at the jest toward his need toward keeping his work tidy. The grin wouldn't allow him to, however. The area seemed heavier, the air had gained a thickness to it -was it there before? Did he simply not notice?- and it was all brought on by that one grin.

Perhaps this was a sign that this was in fact the Prince of Nightmares that kept the entire Spirit world constantly on alert for the possible rise of power.

“It's time you learned to have a little FUN instead!”

Only then did the boy's voice lose that rickety offset, but gained a new control over itself. There was an excitement to it, but an unnatural one nonetheless. The sort that one only heard from a child when they tortured animals and expected praise for experimenting with the lines of life and death.

Pitch could tell just where this was going.

“No--” He began, throwing a hand out to him, as if that could change the boys already made up mind. Jack was already gone, his body had sank into the shadows in one swift into the shadows, a giggle following him, disembodied and seeming to exist everywhere at the same time, there was no beginning or end to it.

Damn this boy and his games...

Pitch jumped up, his feet catching onto the sheet of ice that the wind carried with him, sliding across it. The wind seemed faster then it ever had been before. More intune with direction than usual. It was so ready for the chase that it made Pitch roll his eyes. He damned the wind as much as he did the playful boy of nightmares. He wasn't in the mood for anyone's games this evening. He was rising, listening, and waiting for anything that gave an indication that Jack was nearby.

One flash of black and he was off.

He couldn't hide himself in the way that the Spirit of Fright could; in fact, he stuck out like a sore thumb in the darkness, glowing of whites among the dark blues, pale skin and shimmering hair, not made for hiding in the shadows, only to blend into a winters background. Nor could he glide as well as Jack did from one place to another. Something so jagged in nature was so graceful when it was in flight through the shadows...

Jack would only stay in Pitch's sight long enough for the man to catch up with him before he was back in the shadows again. It seemed that Jack believed that because he held the information Pitch desired, he had complete control over the situation. An upper hand that could not be removed. It was high time to prove this boy wrong.

And oh that boy found his need for organization and calculation to be funny. He had been looking ahead, catching the way Jack jumped from branch to branch, which sorts of trees he seemed to favor. What direction... Jack was mostly random in his travels, but ever so often, a pattern did emerge. He hunted and waited, for one of those to-- Ah. There it was.

Pitched waited for him to appear again, and he was already yanking toward him, releasing from the winds for only one moment in order to throw his whole weight at Jack. Just as he wanted, Jack wasn't anticipating that.

Both of them began to tumble through the air slowly, cushioned by the wind's catch. This boy wasn't the only one with tricks up his sleeves.

*  
He found himself suddenly caught by curiosity. Both wrists were slid up and above the boy's head by large white hands. They were so skinny, he was small in almost every way, and his large hands easily kept both wrists collected in one hand to keep them held in place against the gravely forest floors.

The other hand let the curiosity proceed, grasping the hood that mostly concealed his face in darkness, yanking it down - he might have pulled out a few strands of hair in the process, but oh well - until he could gain a better look at the young face.

He was met with wide, vibrantly colored eyes, shocked by the sudden motions from the Spirit of Winter. They accepted that he was a man of organization, but none realized that there was an extremely heavy bite to winter. It was wasn't just soft flutters of snow. It was calculated gusts of wind and icicles sharp as the man himself.

He did as the season commanded, but forceful winds were his specialty.

Though, completely seeing his looks left Pitch a little shell shocked. His face was that of a still developing young adult. Jaw was slightly defined, giving it a nice hook at the edges, but still holding the softness of youth. There were patterns of black ingrained into light gray skin. It held a grainy texture in each place that the black splotched itself against his skin.

All in all, it was extremely apparent just what this husk was exactly.

It was just a boy who had never had a chance to grow up. And who was wildly terrified simply by being held down. Why did the shadows choose to take a form like THIS? For one moment, Pitch felt some sort of instinct light up inside of him. A certain need to care for the scared little thing, to be sure that his safety and comfort was taken into account, and needs were forgotten for himself.

He realized too soon, that to feed this need, his only choice was to let the little thing go. What an disappointment... But nonetheless, c'est la vie, he wouldn't be able to stop the heavy feeling developing in his chest until it was satisfied.

He sat up, kneeling in front of the other, before rising to his feet with the assistance of the wind to make him rise with ease. The look on Jack's face shifted. From wide eyes of anticipatory apprehension to surprise, not even bothering to move his wrists from where they were upon the ground immediately. What did he expect?

“Ha. With the way you got me down like that, I thought you were gonna put an ic-icicle through my face, chief...”

That answered that.

“I am no murderer, Noir.” Not directly anyway. Accidents happened, anyway, and none of those were by his own intentions, so he didn't feel enough at fault to call himself a killer. He reached his hands down, sweeping away at any brush that might have caught onto his coat, “Even as you might deserve it.”

He didn't know if he really believed that, given his spot in neutrality. But this was the wide belief in the community. Though, the murder of other Spirits was more than frowned upon; he was sure this was the reason that there had not simply been a mob put onto the Prince... Then again, it could also be attributed to fear of his capabilities, and the wide belief that the Guardians would take care of anything that had to do with the Fearlings on their own.

Oh how THAT had worked for them, thus far.

Once again, the boy lifted himself with no problem, the surrounding shadows sliding him from his spot and onto his feat easier then the Wind could ever manage. It looked as though he weighed absolutely nothing. With his scrawny size, Pitch could guess this was possibly accurate.

“Ahaha... Burn... I guess...” He snickered, amused by using the word 'burn' in front of a Winter Spirit, earning another roll of the eyes from Pitch, “You really got me there!”

He hesitated, swaying a bit in thought for a moment, before he turned about, heading in the opposite direction.

“You never answered my question.” Pitch felt like a record on repeat by this point.

“You never asked one.” He swung back around, hood still cheesed at his back, frowning lightly, his arms limp at his sides with the posture that leaned back, “You demanded answe... Answers. You practically attacked me. Now tell me... Why should I give you anything after... That...?”

Pitch couldn't come up with an appropriate answers, he only said the first thing that came to mind, a sort of bargaining, his best subject outside of winter, usually, “If you answer me, I will cease from bothering you.”

The chuckle he let out didn't seem possible for him. It was silken, slide as easily as his shadows, “Now... Why would I want a thing like that?”

Jack smiled at him the whole while he grasped his hood and pulled it back over his hair, before he sunk down into the darkness before any protest could be made on Pitch's end. The presence of Noir was completely erased. None of that nagging feeling of being watched that always seemed to be there when he made his way into the shadows, that alerted that he was still there.

Pitch stood in the darkness, silent and considering...

Deep inside, he realized what sort of poison he had consumed by seeking the boy out this evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most terrifying thing about writing this, is a lot of the plot I had planned out over a month ago, with recent fiction events, could seem like rip offs of other fanfictions. I'm still going to go through with the things I have planned, but... It's a bit scary now.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, yes, no Jack till the very end and just a lot of description and little to no dialogue. I suggest, if you are going to be continuing to read this fanfiction, to read this through because it gives indication of what sort of person Pitch is as a Winter Spirit over a Nightmare/Fear Spirit.
> 
> I have a lot planned for this one, so I really hope I persist with it OTL If I quit out on the fanfiction half way through, I am so sorry.


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